Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim Gives Thanks to God

Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim

Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim delivered a sermon at Sunday worship in Bethany Presbyterian Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland at October 22, 2017. His sermon title was "Express my gratitude." He emphasized that unthankfulness is the evidence of spiritual degeneration while thankfulness is a key for happiness and blessing, with a quotation from the Bible verse Luke 17:11-19. Ten lepers were healed on the way to go to the priests, but only one of them returned back to Jesus to praise God although he was not Jewish. He might shed tears of gratitude shouting that God shows mercy even for foreigners. His faith and thanks to God saved him.

Lim had done humanitarian works for North Korean people, but was arrested by North Korean regime in 2015, and sentenced to life with hard labor. It was a miracle that he was released from detention on 2017. "I was fully isolated in a vacuum during detention", Lim said, "but I am thankful to God since it was the best time for me to communicate with God." He continued, "one of my previous wishes was a monastic life. But God let me experience such a life by being imprisoned." He said that the monastery is primarily similar with a prison, but a monk always thanks to God while a prisoner always laments his/her hard fate. "I could observe a pumpkin leaf growed up through a small window of the jail cell, which let me give thanks to God looking at the mystery of creation in admiration." He confessed that God always reminded him of the bible verse Job 23:10 "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold." He was praising God through his testimony. Lim said, "it is my great gratitude that I could take part in the Passion of Jesus. When I was sentenced to life with hard labor, my mind was full of resentment for a while. But, I know Jesus' trial was the most unreasonable throughout human history." He introduced his great vision and dream to preach the gospel to people, and he was thankful to God who gave him such a vision through hard experiences for the past 2 years and six months.

His sermon was a great stimulus to me. I clearly realized that I should start from returning thanks to God in order to recover my spirituality. I have contemplated how I could escape from a life of ease and become more reverent. I am thankful to God who gave me a good answer through his sermon. I would escape from spiritual leprosy by giving thanks to God.